“This Grisly” Indy

Independent op-ed header:

Wife-beating? That’s fine – unless you’re a Muslim

This is the state of “liberal argument” nowadays. The Indy’s “commentator and stand-up comedian” (although it is hard to tell where one role stops and the other starts) Mark Steel attacks The Sun — do Indy writers actually descend to reading that fount of knowledge? — for “pure fabrication” regarding several stories about Islam. Doing that is not unreasonable: newspapers are, we hope, purportedly about reporting facts.

Which makes one therefore wonder about the Independent. For Mr Steel somehow weirdly drifts from that, to here:

…The most common justification for ridiculing Islam is that the religion is “backward”, particularly towards women, as a fundamental part of its beliefs. The Sun’s old political editor suggests this as a defence of his newspaper’s stance, saying that under Islam, “women are treated as chattels”. And it’s true that religious scriptures can command this, such as the insistence that, “a man may sell his daughter as a slave, but she will not be freed at the end of six years as men are.” Except that comes from the Bible – Exodus, Chapter 21, verse 7.

The Bible is packed with justifications for slavery, including killing your slaves. So presumably the Sun, along with others who regard Islam as a threat to our civilisation, will soon be campaigning against “Sunday Schools of Hate” where children as young as seven are taught to read this grisly book.

In his defence of making stuff up, the Sun’s ex-political editor spoke about the amount of domestic violence suffered by Muslim women. But there’s just as much chance of suffering domestic violence if you’re not a Muslim, as one of the 10 million such incidents a year that take place in Britain. Presumably the anti-Islam lobby would say, “Ah yes, but those other ones involve secular wife-beating, which is not founded on archaic religious customs, but rational reasoning such as not letting him watch the snooker.”…

What is intriguing is how, to attack “anti-Islam fabrications,” Mr Steel ends up on “wife beating.” Given the above stance, it follows then that non-Muslim “wife beaters” are supposedly routinely handed a moral pass because the Bible endorses daughter-selling and slavery? (And, as to those, it’s certainly high time someone finally had the nerve to have pointed that out.) Therefore, are we to assume also then that cells from one end of the country to the other are full of Muslim “wife beaters,” sullenly doing long prison stretches . . . just because they are Muslims?

Mr Steel doesn’t go that far in so many words, but curiously, through inferring there is somehow a “two-tiered” attitude, that is, of course, in itself presumably in no way “distorting” or a fabrication. But, then again, perhaps it is appropriate Mr Steel’s relied on The Sun for the underpining of his argument. After all, why risk looking silly by highlighting all of the innumerable false accounts on Islam from reputable sources, when, to try to make your point, a rag will do.

As courageous as that is intellectually, he goes one further in demonstrating a fearless ability to point an accusing finger at Christianity, which is perhaps a degree of proof as well that Mr Steel doesn’t grasp an essential, current day distinction. But quite a few others of us can: whereas Muslims are apt to cite the Koran as their guidance for day-to-day living, Christians today do not tend to do the same, much less justify “wife beating” by pulling passages from Exodus. However, once upon a time slavery, to note just one example, was attacked by those also citing passages from the Bible. Or does Mr Steel not quite recall?

In any case, it is reassuring to see how downright blasé Mr Steel and his “liberal” Independent claim to be regarding the place in “our civilisation” of a faith the name of which in English translates as “submission” to God. That is understandable, though, given a Bible which produces “Christian” — meaning the religion based on the life and teachings of Christ — forms so utterly inflexible that Anglicanism is currently tearing itself to pieces over women bishops and gay bishops, and Roman Catholicism has produced a Mother Teresa, in comparison to a Koran which is “the Word of God, perfect and inimitable,” and therefore seems decidedly unlikely to allow much space for Islam anytime soon to move generally towards, for instance, even a debate about women and openly gay imams.

Didn’t think “liberals” were into such “submission?” But perhaps Mr Steel feels rather differently than most. If not, it’s surprising: didn’t think “liberals” or “comedians” were into the notion of a “final word” either.

Most interesting of all, though, notice Mr Steel has just flippantly made what might be construed as a nasty and derogatory statement about the Bible: it is “this grisly book.” Not only does that mean Mr Steel has just revealed (no pun intended) a typical “liberal” laziness and/or ignorance about what actually constitutes the basis of Christianity: the New Testament. This blog, for one, looks forward eagerly to devouring Mr Steel’s doubtlessly illuminating comparative critique of certain passages in the Koran (e.g., 9.5″: …slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush,…).

However, if chary about doing so, Mr Steel would seem to have just totally undermined his own entire argument. On the other hand, were he to rise to the theological challenge, one also suspects that Mr Steel might well be able to sit back and perhaps witness another modern fundamental difference between the two faiths. Indeed, being a “commentator and stand up comedian,” he may find the reaction, one might say, “riotously” funny? . . .

“2.256″: There is no compulsion in religion; truly the right way has become clearly distinct from error; therefore, whoever disbelieves in the Shaitan and believes in Allah he indeed has laid hold on the firmest handle, which shall not break off, and Allah is Hearing, Knowing.

. . . for, even in offering up a 700 year old quotation alongside that sentence, and as Mr Steel undoubtedly remembers, our Roman Catholic pope sure did.